


The Prince and the Whipping Boy

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Comfort, Family, Father & Son - Freeform, Gen, Monsters Under Bed, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16087400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon tells Roald a bedtime story.





	The Prince and the Whipping Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for references to fairy tale child abuse but no actual child abuse is shown.

The Prince and the Whipping Boy

“Papa.” Little hands shook Jon out of a dream where he had forgotten the speech he intended to deliver to his council, and opening bleary eyes reluctantly, he saw a tousle-haired, frantic Roald hovering at his bedside. He would have been startled if it hadn’t been the third time his oldest child had awakened him tonight. Roald had always been prone to nightmares and restless nights whenever his mother was out hunting bandits as she was now. He was, Jon thought, very much a Mama’s boy, sensitive to her emotions and presence or absence. “There’s a Stormwing under my bed.” 

“There’s not a Stormwing under your bed.” Jon tried to sound patient with his terrified son when all he wanted to do was burrow his head in his pillows and return to his dream about embarrassing himself in front of his council. “They were all banished to the Immortal Realms centuries ago.” 

“This one wasn’t,” Roald insisted, tugging on Jon’s arm as if he were strong enough to drag his father out from under the blankets. “It’s hiding under my bed, waiting to eat me.” 

“I might believe that”—Jon tweaked his son’s nose, grinning at the shape that reminded him so much of Thayet’s—“if I hadn’t checked under your bed three times tonight and found no trace of Stormwing or any other monster.” 

“You aren’t taking me seriously, Papa.” Roald’s tiny chin quivered. He sounded torn between tears and stamping his foot in frustration. Even at five, nothing distressed Roald more than the prospect of not being taken seriously. 

It was a chilly enough autumn night without Thayet’s warmth beside him that Jon rolled over in bed, and, patting the now empty area on the mattress beside him, offered, “Spend the rest of the night with me, and in the morning, I’ll have priests light incense in your room to chase out the Stormwing.” 

Silently Roald slipped beneath the blankets and curled close to Jon. He was quiet just long enough for Jon to almost drift back to sleep before he whispered, “Papa, I’m still scared of the Stormwing.” 

“I’m here to protect you.” Jon hugged Roald against his chest. Kissing his son’s furrowed forehead, he suggested, “Think of something else besides the Stormwing, and you’ll be able to fall asleep.” 

“It’d help me think of something else and fall asleep if you told me a bedtime story, Papa.” Roald’s thumb wriggled into his mouth as only happened when he was excessively tired or nervous, Roald regarding it as a childish habit under all other circumstances. 

“What story would you like me to tell, son?” Jon asked, wishing that he was familiar with more bedtime stories. Normally he happily entrusted the art of telling bedtime stories to the nursemaids and Thayet. Now he was about to display his woeful ignorance of bedtime stories to his oldest son. 

“Your favorite one.” Roald’s words were muffled by his thumb. 

“I’m not certain I have a favorite one.” Rubbing thoughtfully at his beard, he grinned as the inspiration of long-buried childhood memories of stories his own mother and nursemaids had told him when tucking him in resurfaced. “I did when I was little, though. It was a classic one about a spoiled prince and his whipping boy…” 

“What’s a whipping boy, Papa?” Roald interrupted just as Jon was starting to warm to his subject. 

“A whipping boy is a solution some cultures developed to avoid the awkwardness of hitting royalty.” When his son still appeared baffled, he explained more bluntly, “A whipping boy gets beaten when a prince misbehaves.” 

“Oh.” Roald frowned. “I wouldn’t want to have a whipping boy. It’d be wrong for someone else to be punished for something I did, wouldn’t it?” 

“It’s important to take responsibility for your actions, but you don’t need a whipping boy because your mama and I would never beat you.” Jon ruffled his son’s mussed hair. “Would you like to hear the rest of the story?” 

When Roald nodded, Jon went on, “Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, a spoiled prince lived in a grand palace. The spoiled prince spent his days pranking people but his biggest trick came at a banquet the king and queen hosted for an ambassador. While the guests were standing for the toasts, the prince snuck needles onto their chairs. When everyone sat down, they jumped up immediately with gasps and cries of pain…” 

“That wasn’t very polite of the prince.” Roald seemed to struggle to express his indignation at a prince who failed to be courteous through a stifled yawn. 

“He was called a spoiled prince for a reason.” Jon chuckled before continuing to describe how the whipping boy was summoned for punishment. 

When he next glanced at his son as he was about to begin the account of how the prince and the whipping boy escaped the palace on a quest for adventure, he realized that Roald’s eyes were closed and his lips parted slightly while his chest rose and fell in serene slumber. Cutting off his story, he followed his son into sleep.


End file.
